New York Decides to Have Public Schools Closed on Rosh Hashanah

New York City’s public schools will, here after, shut down annually on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, “for administrative reasons,” the city’s Board of Education decided unanimously here this weekend.

Dr. John J. Theobald, superintendent of schools, recommended the school closing on the Jewish High Holy Days on the grounds that, even in schools where the pupils are preponderantly non-Jewish, so many teachers are absent on the Jewish High Holy Days that it is unsafe to keep the schools open.

The board voted only for the closing of the schools this year on Jewish New Year, which falls September 22 and 23. Yom Kippur this year offers no problem, since it will come on a Saturday. But the principle of the shutdown will, after this year, apply to Yom Kippur as well as to Rosh Hashanah.